2009: International Vulture Awareness Day

Cape vultures, like this one flying over its native grounds in Gauteng, South Africa, are listed as a vulnerable species. This means they are not quite endangered, but still face threats such as habitat loss, poisoning, and electrocution.

On September 5, 2009, conservation groups in South Africa and the United Kingdom organized the first International Vulture Awareness Day. Now it is celebrated each year on the first Saturday in September to highlight the ecological importance of vultures.

Vultures are birds that evolved to scavengecarrion, or dead animals. The 23 species are divided into two main groups based on geography: Old World vultures (Asia, Africa, and Europe) and New World vultures (North and South America). Their similar bald appearance evolved independently at least twice, which means that New World vultures (such as black vultures) are more closely related to many other kinds of birds than to Old World vultures.

Vultures are an important part of many food webs. Without vultures, carcasses take longer to decompose and may attract more mammalian scavengers or lay rotting while invertebrate scavengers clean up. In Africa, vultures such as the Cape vulture are under threat from poisoning by poachers because they can reveal the locations of poached carcasses when they circle overhead in large groups. Asian vultures suffered serious population declines in the last decade due to eating carcasses of domestic animals treated with a drug (diclofenac) that causes kidney failure. Some New World vultures, such as turkey vultures, are common and unthreatened, but both the California condor and Andean condor are threatened by poisoning and habitat loss. People can share their observations of vultures with the Great Nature Project or other citizen science projects in order to help understand vulture behavior and distributions.

Term

Part of Speech

Definition

Encyclopedic Entry

behavior

Noun

anything an organism does involving action or response to stimulation.

carcass

Noun

dead body.

carrion

Noun

flesh of a dead animal.

celebrate

Verb

to observe or mark an important event with public and private ceremonies or festivities.

citizen science

Noun

science project or program where volunteers who are not scientists conduct surveys, take measurements, or record observations.

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Writer

Carrie Seltzer, National Geographic Society

Editor

Caryl-Sue, National Geographic Society

Producer

Julie Brown, National Geographic Society

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